There were a lot of people standing around outside the nature center on Monday when the Aldens arrived. Once again the door was locked.
“Doggie!” a little girl squealed as the Aldens joined the group. Jessie held Watch on a leash. There were several other dogs in the crowd, too.
The Aldens stopped and let the little girl pet Watch.
Just behind them, the Zeller twins were arguing with David Greene.
“We are way better at geocaching than you guys,” Zack claimed.
“Oh, sure you are,” David replied. “That’s why you guys couldn’t find one of the caches you were supposed to find over the weekend.”
“We couldn’t find it because someone stole it!” Zoe cried, hands on her hips.
“I think you just couldn’t find it because you’re not good geocachers,” David said.
The little girl had finished petting Watch, so the Aldens moved away from the Greenes and the Zellers. All that arguing made the Aldens uncomfortable.
“Remember what Andy told us? There’s a rivalry between those two families,” Henry said.
“That may be,” Jessie said, stopping to let Watch nuzzle noses with a beagle. “But sometimes their arguing sounds a little mean.”
The Aldens found Andy Robertson and his dad up by the door to the nature center. Mr. Robertson was talking to an older man with a red baseball cap. They all looked worried.
“What’s the matter?” Jessie asked.
“We’re just wondering where Cal could be,” Mr. Robertson said, scratching his chin. “Nobody here has heard from him in nearly a week.”
“We saw him at the dog park that day we met you last week,” Henry said. “But we haven’t seen him since.”
“Several people here have called him and left messages, but he hasn’t returned any of the calls,” Andy said.
The older man in the baseball cap nodded. “I’ve been volunteering here for six years and I’ve never arrived to find the doors locked. I don’t think Cal’s ever missed a day of work in his life. As far as I know, he’s the only one who has a key. He certainly wouldn’t close the nature center without telling the volunteers.”
“What if something bad happened?” Benny asked. “Maybe he was out hiking without his GPS and got lost in the woods. Maybe a mountain lion got him!”
“I don’t think there are any mountain lions around here, son,” the man in the baseball cap said, patting Benny on the back. “Wherever Cal is, I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for why he hasn’t called. I just wish we knew what it was.”
“Well, maybe we should go ahead and hold our meeting outside again,” Mr. Robertson said. He walked toward the crowd and whistled to get everyone’s attention.
The club members talked a little more about Cal and how strange it was that he would just disappear without telling anyone where he was. Then the talk turned to the missing caches.
“The other mystery,” Benny whispered.
“What do you mean?” Violet whispered back.
“There are two mysteries here: where is Cal is one mystery, and what happened to the missing caches is the other mystery,” Benny said.
“Did you all have a chance to go check the geocaches you were assigned to over the weekend?” Mr. Robertson asked.
Everyone nodded.
“I’ve got my list of caches right here,” Mr. Greene said, opening his clipboard. “Let’s just go down the list and see which ones were found and which ones weren’t.”
Jessie opened her backpack and pulled out a small notebook and pencil. “I think I’ll make a list of which ones are missing, too,” she told Henry, Violet, and Benny.
It took about ten minutes to go through the entire list. When Mr. Greene finished, Jessie had a list of eight caches that were missing.
“That’s a lot of missing caches,” a man in a gray sweatshirt said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we missed one or two,” the woman next to him said. “But I don’t think we would miss eight of them.”
Several other people nodded.
“That proves there’s a thief in Greenfield,” Mr. Zeller declared.
“But why would someone steal our caches?” one of the college students asked. “There isn’t anything valuable in them.”
“Someone just wants to ruin our fun,” the man in the gray sweatshirt said.
“Do you think more caches are going to go missing?” Andy asked with concern.
“Could be,” Mr. Zeller said.
“What are we going to do about the contest if all our caches start disappearing?” the man in the gray sweatshirt asked.
“Maybe we’ll have to cancel the contest this month,” Mr. Greene said.
“We shouldn’t cancel it,” Zoe Zeller said, tossing her brown braid over her shoulder.
“Yeah,” her brother, Zack, added. “We can just say that whoever’s found the most caches so far wins! I’m sure that’s us.” Zack smiled.
“Now, wait a minute—” David Greene interrupted.
Mr. Robertson raised his hands for order. “I don’t think we have to give up on the contest just yet. Let’s see what happens. Let’s see if the missing caches turn up. Let’s see if other caches go missing.”
“Good idea,” several people agreed.
The meeting broke up shortly after that. The Aldens stayed and talked with Andy for a few minutes, then they decided to walk home through the woods so they could stop at the dog park and let Watch run around.
“I sure hope we can figure out what happened to all those missing caches,” Violet said as she kicked at an acorn on the path.
“I hope that more caches don’t go missing,” Benny said, holding tight to Watch’s leash.
“Me, too,” Jessie said.
All of a sudden Violet grabbed Jessie’s arm. “Shh!” she hissed. “I hear something.”
Everyone stopped and listened. Watch sat down on the path and cocked his head. At first all they heard was the wind through the trees. Then they heard voices.
The Aldens crept closer and peered around a big tree. They saw the Zeller twins sitting on a log talking.
“Maybe we should put them back,” Zack said.
“No, not yet,” Zoe said.
Watch barked and the twins looked up. They scowled at the Aldens. “Why are you guys always following us around?” Zack asked.
“Are you spying on us?” Zoe asked.
But before the Aldens could answer, the twins took off toward the nature center.
“That was strange,” Violet said.
“And what did Zack mean when he said, ‘maybe we should put them back?’ ” Jessie wondered. “Put what back?”
“The caches?” Benny asked. “Did they take the missing caches?”
“Why would they do that?” Violet asked.
“They’re members of the geocaching club. They don’t want the caches to go missing any more than anyone else in the club does.”
“Except they’re trying to win the prize for most caches found,” Jessie said. “If some of the caches go missing, then other people— like the Greenes—won’t find them.”
“And then maybe the Zellers will win the contest,” Benny said.
“I don’t know,” Henry said. “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Zoe and Zack could’ve been talking about anything.”
“Yeah, but I still think we should keep an eye on them,” Benny said.
“I agree,” Jessie said.
The next morning, the telephone rang bright and early at the Alden house. The children weren’t even out of bed yet.
Violet rolled over and looked at the clock on the nightstand between her bed and Jessie’s. “It’s only 7:30,” Violet said with a yawn as the telephone rang again. “Who could be calling us so early?”
“I don’t know,” Jessie replied. She threw her covers off and stumbled to the telephone in the upstairs hallway. Violet was right behind her.
“Hello?” Jessie said in a raspy voice.
“Jessie? This is Andy. I’m sorry to call so early. Did I wake you?”
The boys’ bedroom door opened then and Henry and Benny stepped out into the hallway.
“It’s okay, Andy,” Jessie said. “I was just getting up anyway. What’s up?” Violet, Henry, and Benny squeezed in so they could hear, too.
“My dad and I were out geocaching this morning,” Andy began. “We were going to grab the travel bug out of the ‘Strike Three’ cache because we’re going to visit my grandma in Pine City tomorrow. So we thought we’d put the travel bug at a cache near my grandma’s house. Except now we can’t.”
“Oh, no,” Jessie said. “Is the travel bug missing?”
“The whole cache is missing,” Andy said.
“That’s terrible,” Jessie said.
“We found something else in its place, though,” Andy said. “A folded up piece of paper.”
“Did you open it?” Jessie asked. “Was there anything written on the paper?”
“Just two words,” Andy said. “ ‘Ha-ha.’ ” |